


with every small disaster

by hopeintheashes



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e05 Buck Begins, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29502078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeintheashes/pseuds/hopeintheashes
Summary: Post-4x05 (Buck Begins). Because somebody needs to tell Buck that it's okay not to be okay, and that somebody is Eddie, with some help from Christopher.Title from Gabrielle Aplin's "Home."
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 248





	with every small disaster

_hey_

Eddie blinks at the single word glowing on his phone screen. That's... not how text conversations from Buck start. They don't start at all, haven't for years— at this point, it's just a stream-of-consciousness mix of dinner plans and random photos from his day and whatever thought pops into his head, interspersed with an ongoing conversation between Buck and Christopher via Eddie's phone. 

_hey,_ he writes back, trying to keep the worry at bay. _where are you?_ He knows Buck went to talk to Maddie after shift, but that was hours ago. 

A long pause. Eddie realizes he's pacing. Goes to get a drink of water just for something to do. Finally, his phone buzzes: _I left Maddie and Chim's._ Leaves it at that. Lets Eddie read between the lines: Going back to the apartment, back to Albert and his well-intentioned questions, without even a door to close between them, is just too much. 

_come here,_ Eddie types, so fast that it autocorrects and he has to try again. 

_yeah,_ he gets back. _okay._

  
He hears the Jeep pull in, and the strength of the wave of relief takes him by surprise. When he doesn't hear the turn of Buck's key in the lock, he goes out onto the porch, barefoot in the cooling air. Buck's still in the driver's seat of the Jeep, head tipped back, like he's trying to work up the willpower to open the car door. Eddie leans against a column and waits. When Buck does get out, his duffel bag is in his hand. Eddie's not even sure it's a conscious decision, but he's grateful for what it implies. 

They end up in the living room. Buck sits down in the corner of the couch and wraps his arms around himself, looking everywhere but at him. Eddie sits down in the chair. Giving him some space, if he wants it. 

"I talked to Maddie," Buck says finally, eyes still far away. 

"Yeah? How'd it go?" 

Before Buck can answer, Christopher comes barreling into the living room. "Buck! You're here!" 

"I'm here!" Buck's smile is tired, but genuine. He opens his arms and Christopher comes in for a hug, then drops down next to him on the couch. 

"You missed dinner, but did Dad tell you we're having ice cream for dessert?" 

Buck gives him his best shocked face. "No, he did _not_ tell me that!" Mock indignance, getting in on the act.

"I said _maybe_ ," Eddie points out, and he gets two identical pouts in return. He laughs and gives in. As if he was ever going to say no. 

  
"Okay," Eddie says after dessert, "ice cream or not, it's still a school night. Go brush your teeth, and I'll be in in a minute." 

Christopher's been watching Buck, the way his smile slips every time he thinks Christopher can't see. "Can Buck come read with me instead?" 

Eddie laughs at the bluntness of the question, at getting summarily rejected in the way only kids do, but Buck blinks at Christopher like the request comes as a surprise, even after all this time. "Yeah, of course I will." 

Eddie cleans up the kitchen and then wanders down the hall to see how the bedtime routine is coming along. Christopher is giving Buck the backstory on the chapter book he and Eddie have been reading together while he gets under the covers and Buck sits down beside him, leaned up against the headboard just like Eddie does every night. Eddie leans in the doorway, watching. There's a pause, and then Christopher twists to look up at Buck. "Are you okay?" 

Buck's expression wavers, but he keeps it together. "I—" Buck pulls a hand down his face and takes a breath. "It's been a hard day." He shakes his head. "A hard couple of days." 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Curious and open and gentle. When did his kid get so grown-up?

About five different emotions on Buck's face at once. Eddie holds his breath. Christopher's old enough to know the basics if Buck wants to share them, but right before bed on a school night is not the time to take that on. 

"I appreciate the offer," Buck tells him seriously, and Eddie exhales. "But it's not anything you need to worry about, okay?"

Christopher hums thoughtfully, then pats Buck's leg. "Okay. Well, since you're having a bad day, I'll read to you tonight, how about that?" 

There are tears in Buck's eyes, and honestly, in Eddie's as well. "Yeah. That would be great." He ruffles Christopher's hair, then presses a kiss into the same spot. "I love you, kid. You know that, right?" 

Christopher smiles. "Yup. And I love you, too." 

  
Eddie leaves them to it, and when he comes back, Christopher's asleep with the book haphazard on the covers, and Buck's nearly there as well, neck twisted in a way that's going to hurt in the morning if he doesn't move soon. 

"Hey," he whispers. A hand on Buck's shoulder, and Buck comes to with a start, and stretches, and gets up, and follows Eddie back to the living room. Eddie closes Christopher's door behind him. 

It's dim in the living room, the lights turned down low. Buck sits down in the same corner of the couch, and this time Eddie sits down on the couch as well. Gives him a minute, then jumps back in.

"So you talked to Maddie?" Trying to pick up where they'd left off. 

A small, genuine smile. "Yeah. She told me about Daniel." A hint of tears. "About what he was like." 

"Wow, that must have been..." He trails off, not wanting to assume. 

Buck nods a little. "It was good."

"And... Maddie? Her keeping the secret like that? How are you..." _feeling about that?_ It sounds too clinical, so he leaves the thought unfinished again. 

Buck shrugs. "She was just trying to protect me." 

"I know." A pause. "So it's okay?" 

The way Buck looks at him. Like the question doesn't make sense. "It has to be okay." 

"It doesn't," Eddie counters. "It doesn't have to be okay." When he doesn't get an answer, he keeps going. "You can feel however you feel about it and still love her. You can be mad that she kept the secret, and that she told Chim, and that Chim told the fucking _bomber_ about it, and still care about both of them. All of those things can be true." 

Buck works his lip between his teeth and doesn't reply. 

"And you talked to your parents?" He knows he's pushing, but he can't stop. 

"Yeah," Buck says. Not meeting his eyes. "We're good now." 

"You're... good?" He can't keep the disbelief out of his voice. "Two days ago you were beating the hell out of that punching bag, telling me how much they made you feel like shit, had for your whole life, and now after one conversation everything's _good?"_

"What do you want me to say, Eddie?"

"Did they apologize?" 

No reply. 

"Buck." He's really getting worked up now.

"They said it wasn't my fault." Defensive. "That they didn't blame me." 

"Of course it's not your fucking fault! That's _bare minimum,_ Buck. Less than bare minimum. They don't get any fucking points for that." 

"They said I was born to save someone, and that's what I do now." His voice is small. "So they're proud of me." 

That one little word. _So._ Like their love is contingent on Buck earning it. On being "good enough," whatever the hell that means. Eddie feels sick. "And if you'd stayed a bartender? Or kept working construction? They wouldn't be proud of you then? Jesus Christ, Buck, that's not what being a parent is about. No matter how big the loss is—" throat constricting, hard to breathe— "you suck it up and you _keep being the parent,_ and if you can't do that you ask for fucking help." 

"Eddie." Soft in a way that Eddie cannot fucking handle right now. 

"No." He swallows hard. "This is not about me. Don't you dare try to make this about me." 

Buck looks away, and then back. "Well, whatever. It's over." 

"It's been _two days."_

"We just... start over from here." 

"Is that what you would tell Christopher? If someone lied to him for his whole life, over and over again, when he finally found out you would tell him, oh, it's fine, just forgive them and move on?" 

Buck's eyes go hard. "Low fucking blow, Diaz." 

"I know. I'm sorry. Just—" Rubbing circles into his eyes. "Anybody else, Buck, you'd give them space to process this. Time to grieve." 

Buck pulls back ever so slightly at the word. "Grieve?" 

_"Grieve,_ Buck. You get to grieve your brother. Everyone else has had decades. You get more than a day."

Buck's shaking his head. "I didn't even know him, Eddie. They did. It's not my place." 

"Did they try to tell you that?" He's too loud, he knows he's in danger of waking Christopher, but Jesus Christ, Buck, who— Well. He was about to wonder _who fucked you up this bad,_ but he's gotten more insight into that in the last two days than in the last two years. 

Buck's mouth is working like the tears are threatening again. Eddie expects him to yell right back, but his voice is broken and low. "Can we not have this fight right now?" 

"It's not meant to be a fight, Buck." 

"Feels like one," he mutters, and Eddie leans back and sighs. Runs a hand through his hair. 

"I'm sorry. I just." He reaches for Buck, and then pulls back his hand. Buck watches him, still working his lips between his teeth. "I'm sorry," he repeats. Buck looks away. A long moment of silence. Eddie picks up the remote to turn on the game, just to have something to break the endless silence, and then he stops, turning the remote over and over in his hands. "I'm not trying to tell you how to process this, Buck." Quiet. "I just need you to know that someone is one hundred percent on your side. _I'm_ one hundred percent on your side. I don't have to care about anyone else's feelings, or smoothing things over, or showing my face at the next Buckley family dinner. I'm not ever going to tell you to get over it, or that you should forgive and forget. I'll hold a grudge forever if you want me to," he adds, and gets a tiny smile in return. 

  
Eddie does turn on the game, then, and watches Buck sink lower into the couch and his eyes slip closed. Turns off the tv at halftime, even though it's not that late. Waits for the sudden silence to pull Buck back to the surface. "Where are you sleeping?" he asks. 

"Here," Buck says, and apparently that doesn't just mean Eddie's house but also right there on the couch, because he slides down and buries his face in the couch pillow and doesn't move. 

"Okay." Eddie pulls a blanket over him and pats his shoulder, and heads to his own room. 

  
He can't pinpoint what woke him, but the clock says 1:37 and his eyes are open, so he gets up to investigate. He finds Buck in the hallway, leaning in the doorway to Christopher's room, watching him sleep with tears streaming down his face. He jumps when Eddie touches his shoulder, and immediately starts apologizing as quietly as he can, but Eddie cuts him off, wrapping him up in a bear hug and letting him sob. When his breath starts to slow Eddie walks him back to his bedroom and presses Buck down onto his bed, and sits down beside him. Wraps an arm around his shoulders. Lets Buck fall against him. Leans his cheek onto the top of Buck's head. 

"I don't know what to feel," Buck tells him eventually, quiet and breaking. 

"You don't have to know." Murmuring the words into his hair. "And you don't have to be okay. We're here for you, alright? No matter how long it takes." 

Buck nods against him, heavy at his side, and lets Eddie coax him under the covers. "I should probably message Dr. Copeland in the morning, huh?" 

_You haven't already?_ "I'd say so." He gets under the covers as well and pulls Buck close. "If she can fit you in tomorrow, I'll go for a nice long run so you can have the house to yourself to meet with her, and then we can talk afterward if you want, okay?" 

Buck nods, the tension slowly starting to seep out of his body. 

"Pancakes for breakfast before Christopher goes to school?" 

Buck nods again, fainter this time, and exhales. "Yeah. That sounds like a plan." 


End file.
